#1 in the set is Mugen Captain / Skull Captain. Pictured above are the contents of the set minus the gum. Note the small shield and sword which the robot can wield. The robot is of similar fashion to other Mugenbine candy toy sets' robot.
This is Mugen Captain with all of his stickers applied. The small white stripes are very tiny and skinny stickers which wrap around the body. The yellow belt and belt buckle are also very small stickers. So far all of these stickers have stayed in place...hope I didn't just jinx myself.
Flip Mugen Captain over and you now have the skull faced Skull Captain figure. There aren't many paint apps on these toys, but the skull has been painted white with a small black eye patch. If you are familiar w/ these candy sets you'll know that some of the stickers are small and hard to apply. Sometimes you don't even have solid portions of plastic to apply the stickers to. The tops of Skull Captain's arms have deep ridges in the plastic which once the stickers have been applied don't stay in place very well. The rest of the stickers weren't too bad to apply.
#2 in the set is Mugen Stingray, one of my personal favorites. Here are the contents of the package. Notice the small Roider figure, Roider Deep. The other large piece is the stingray's tail which doubles as Mugen Pirate's sword.
And here is Mugen Stingray with all of his stickers applied. Thankfully most of these stickers are large and easy to apply. The tips of the wings are hinged, note the small gray hinge. One of mine always wants to hang down a little bit which slightly annoys me. Not sure if this is a problem on other sets.
#3 in the set is Mugen Shark, a very nice hammerhead / sawtooth shark hybrid. All of the external fins come attached to a plastic tree. Not many of the Mugenbine sets have pieces attached like this. Notice all the small thin red stickers. These will be applied to the sides of the fins and around the gray sawtooth portion.
Stickers applied, Mugen Shark looks much better. The red stickers on the rear fins are supposed to wrap around the sides, but will most likely start to peel off shortly after applied. Same goes for the longer red sticker on the sawtooth portion.
#4 in the set is Mugen Scissors. This is a great mold as the crab's claws are fully articulated. Mugen Pirate's fists are included with this set. Outside of one sticker, these are rather easy to apply and stay in place fairly well.
Mugen Scissors are stickered up. If you'll take a look at the yellow painted eyes you'll notice a gray sticker that has been applied that wraps around and underneath. The details on this sticker make these tube like features look like machine guns in my opinion. What's so awful about this sticker is they do not want to stay in place. Any sticker that is wrapped around like this will want to peel immediately. I used a very small dab of super glue to keep this sticker in place.
#5 in the set is Mugen Kraken, a squid type creature. This mold is more or less a brick. Nice design, but little to no articulation. Easy to apply stickers thankfully.
Mugen Kraken with stickers applied. Nothing else to look at here.
#6 and last in the set is Mugen Whale. Ironically this is one of the smaller figures in the set. His side fins also come attached to a small plastic tree. It may be hard to notice because of the flash glare on the sticker sheet, but the large brown stickers have a wooden grain detail. I'll explain more about that in the next section. The rest of the stickers are large enough that it makes the application easy. Only exception is the yellow skull looking sticker. Notice the small gray piece on the whale's back? This piece has all the same details, but is covered up by the yellow sticker.
Mugen Whale with stickers applied. The side and rear fins do have a limited amount of articulation. The whale's lower jaw is fully articulated which is a nice touch. Notice the black and blue rear section? It's basically the same piece as the middle portion of Mugen Kraken. More on that later.
Here is where that wood grain on the stickers comes into play. The middle portion of Mugen Whale is actually a "wooden" treasure chest! Now what pirate is without his chest of booty? As you can see the lid on the chest is articulated and opens all the way up.
The next portion of the review will cover the gestalt, Mugen Pirate. Instead of just jumping to pics and a description of the combined robot I opted to show each step in the construction.
The next portion of the review will cover the gestalt, Mugen Pirate. Instead of just jumping to pics and a description of the combined robot I opted to show each step in the construction.
The first step is to compose each arm. Here we've got pieces from Mugen Scissors, Shark and Stingray. The articulated arm portions are from Mugen Scissors along w/ the crab claws. The large fins on the top of the claws are from Mugen Stingray and the small blue fins are from Mugen Shark.
The next step is to build the legs. Here we have multiple pieces from Mugen Captain, Kraken, Scissors, Shark and Whale. There is a good bit of articulation in the feet thanks to the hinges on the arrow shaped portion of Mugen Kraken. The red blocks that help form the ankles also have small hinged pegs that allow for more articulation in the feet. The middle and top portion of the legs are identical pieces, one each from Mugen Shark and Mugen Kraken. Mugen Captain's robot legs fit on the back of each leg and help give them stability.
Next we build the Mugen Pirate's helmet if you will. The main portion is Mugen Shark's hammerhead piece and the sawtooth nose along w/ the skull piece from Mugen Whale. This piece will fit snugly over Mugen Captain's small robot head.
Moving up from the legs we now have the waist portion. Composed of Mugen Captain, Kraken and Shark. Mugen Kraken's tentacle pieces now forms an articulated armor coat tail if you will.
Now we build the upper torso to snap onto the waist that we just built in the previous step. This is mostly Mugen Captain's upper torso and head along w/ 2 pieces from Mugen Kraken.
Next is to add a few pieces to the upper torso. Snap on the red wing tips from Mugen Stingray and Mugen Captain's shield to the chest.
It was hard for me to get a good picture of the next step...which is to snap on a few left over pieces that really don't contribute to Mugen Pirate's overall robot. Here we have Mugen Whale's rear fins, Mugen Stingray's main body and Mugen Whale head. This all plugs into the back of the upper torso and forms a backpack if you will.
The last step in the construction of Mugen Pirate is his large anchor weapon. The sides of the anchor are the arms of Mugen Captain / Skull Captain. The U shaped piece is from Mugen Kraken while the red crown looking piece is from Mugen Stingray. The middle and top portions of the anchor is the Mugen Captain's sword. On the back of the U shaped piece is a peg that allows Mugen Pirate to wield this large anchor as a weapon or perhaps for defensive purposes like a shield.
And finally, after tedious laboring we have the final finished product...Mugen Pirate. He stands approximately 9 inches tall and has a menacing look. He has several points of articulation in this form. Feet, ankles, thighs, hips, waist, arms, elbows and head. The tail of Mugen Stingray forms a large sword, but the way the sword's hilt is made doesn't allow the sword to be placed in the hand the way I thought it should. The curved portion of the "blade" faces the back. I've seen pictures with the sword facing the other way in Mugen Pirate's hand, but I for the life of me cannot figure how they made that happen.
My only complaint with Mugen Captain is the head. The helmet that fits over Mugen Captain's robot head and almost obstructs or hides the robot's face. It's a minor complaint, but I feel it's a valid point.
Robot looks best when viewed from the front. That backpack portion I mentioned just seems to jut out the back and can make the robot a little top heavy.
In closing, I really wanted to give his set high marks...but I don't feel like I am being honest with myself if I do. The individual toys all sport fantastic designs and fun little toys, but combined the gestalt just seems to fall a little short of my expectations. The colors blend together well and he's got a good overall look, but he just doesn't stand up when compared again Mugen Pharaoh or even Mugen Arthur. Is he worth purchasing? Based on the individual figures I'd say yes. But if you intend on displaying him in gestalt mode exclusively you may want to consider picking up one of the other sets.
* Special thanks to Roanstalker & Seawing of the TFW2005 boards for the English name translations.
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